Thursday, April 28, 2016

After 3 years, Canadian thrashers Untimely
Demise are back with their third full-length album: “Black Widow”. While their
previous album was very strong, “Black Widow” is an even more impressive
offering. It manages to encompass a variety of styles and sounds, yet still has
a very distinct focus. The band’s playing is extremely technical (listen to
some of the crazy licks in “Forgotten In Time” for one example), yet this never
dominates the music. In other words, these songs are still excellently crafted
despite how absurd some of the riffs are. Additionally, the band remains
immediately unmistakable from their peers due to the wild vocals of frontman Matt
Cuthbertson. Though he employs a couple of different voices on this record, his
most prominent is a truly wicked blackened thrash voice. It would be futile
trying to sing along to this record because you’ll tear out your vocal cords in
the process, which is unfortunate because a lot of these songs are incredibly
catchy. Even though Matt’s voice is incredibly aggressive, it is still easy to
decipher the lyrics on this record.

The highlight of the album is the opener,
“Forgotten In Time”. While some of the early parts might be a little bit
jarring, the chorus and subsequent post-chorus are incredibly memorable, with
some fantastic vocal patterns that will be stuck in your head for a long time
to come. The use of the post-chorus is especially effective because it acts as a method of amping up the intensity of the track. The best part of the song, however, is the entire second half: the band launches
into a lengthy instrumental section featuring stupidly impressive guitar
acrobatics. Of almost equal focus, however, is the bass playing, which pops out
with some Steve Harris-esque lines. Much like on numerous Maiden songs, the
bass isn’t necessarily playing a solo, but still has distinctive lines that
complement the guitar work. “Forgotten In Time” isn’t the only long
instrumental section, as the title track does something similar near the end, but it is the most impressive.

Melodic guitar playing is actually much
more of a focus on this record than one might expect from the typical
black/thrash album. Every track is filled with numerous guitar solos, often
played by the band’s frontman, but there are also some guest shredders on this
record too. Even when the playing isn’t about fitting in as many notes as
possible, the band still makes melody an important characterstic of their
music. “Cancer of the Heart”, for example, has some melodic undertones
throughout the chorus that add a lot more depth to the song and separate it
from the remaining tracks on the album. Another song, “Calling Me Back From The
Light”, kicks things off with a quieter, more subdued intro, letting a sole
lead guitar guide the way before erupting into a more violent track.

Because of the fact that the guitar playing
is so prominent on this record, the band’s influences become quite clear. The
aforementioned “Calling Me Back From The Light”, for example, has one lick in
one of the solos where you can distinctly hear Jason Becker’s influence
creeping in due to the way that section of the solo is played. Similarly, the
closer, “Holy Man”, busts out some “Symbolic” era Death melodies in its intro. Death
appears to be a major influence on Untimely Demise, often in the form of Steve
DiGiorgio-like wandering bass lines, as well as many of the odd leads that are
prevalent on the record.

It almost feels criminal to get this deep
into a review and not have mentioned some of the songs on this record.
“Anticolonizer” is a song so good that the band recorded it twice. Ok, not
quite, but there is a second version at the end of the record that features
Shawn Drover (ex-Megadeth, Act of Defiance, Eidolon) on drums instead of the
band’s new drummer Bryan Newbury. There’s definitely a noticeable difference
between the two recordings, as Drover implements some fills that make
interesting use of toms in a way that is absent on the rest of the record. This
isn’t to say that Newbury does a bad job though; in fact, his playing
absolutely crushes. The only way to complement musicianship as good as Matt and
Murray Cuthbertson’s is by matching it with equally impressive drumming. The
reason why Drover’s playing stands out, though, is simply because there’s
always a difference when you hear 8 songs in one drummer’s style and then move
on to another drummer for the last song. Though this is a great track, it does
feel a little redundant to put it on the record twice. Truthfully, either
version is more than sufficient of making the final cut, so it probably would
have been best to pick one version and go with it. This is especially true
given that the second to last track, “Holy Man”, is one of the best on the
record, and would make for a great closer.

“Black Widow” is clearly a record that the
band has invested a lot of time into, both in the songwriting and recording
process. There are no duds on this album, and every song has more than a few
distinct parts to enjoy, alongside the general carnage throughout the record. Untimely Demise already had a unique sound compared to
a lot of their peers, and “Black Widow” takes that a step further. This record
might be a difficult listen if you don’t like solos because there are a lot of
them, but the lead playing doesn’t feel indulgent or excessive. Instead, it
adds chaos to an already chaotic record. The end result is that “Black Widow”
is one of the most compelling thrash albums in decades, and will be looked back
on as fondly as anything from the 80s!

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

It’s been a couple of years since we last
heard from Sweden’s Hypertension, but they’re back now with a new EP. For those
unfamiliar with the band, they play an incredibly convincing blend of styles,
melding speed metal, thrash metal, and even black metal into one wild
concoction. Their overarching sound could be best described as Venom at
double-speed. Hypertension’s vocalist manages to channel the spirit of Cronos.
Their music is also similarly built upon a foundation of old-school NWOBHM,
though to the band’s credit, they are able to inject their own influences into
things. For example, while there are a lot of those simple 1982ish riffs on
this release, Hypertension also utilizes riffs that have a touch of dissonance, which
would not be out of place on some mid-1990s melodic black metal album.

As the EP rages on, the band further experiments,
using blast beats on “Death’s Rage” (though they’re very much in the
background relative to how many other bands use them). This song also shows the
band incorporating harmonized leads into their sound. The tempos are pretty
much always high on every track, and the band never lacks energy. Much like the
band’s first two releases, “Dark Storms Arise” has pretty much the perfect
production for this sound: enough clarity to understand what is going on,
without sacrificing any atmosphere.

The closing song on this release is a cover
of Razor’s “Iron Hammer”. While not my favourite song from “Evil Invaders”,
pretty much everything on that album is a masterpiece, and Hypertension does
the song justice. In fact, despite my early claims about their vocalist
sounding like Cronos, he does his best Sheepdog impression on this track. This
song is actually a great pick for their sound, as Razor always had tons of
those hyper-charged NWOBHM riffs in their sound.

“Dark Storms Arise” is another
must-purchase from Hypertension. At this point, it’s hard to foresee the band
doing any wrong. The execution has always been there, and their songwriting is still on point. It’s not too late to jump on the Hypertension bandwagon, but I’d do
so sooner rather than later because these guys are pumping out great material
at an impressive pace!